


A Little Faith in You

by Huluppu



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Blink and You'll Miss It Sexual Content, Brief swearing, F/M, Love in All Forms, M/M, Vietnamese Wedding Traditions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-10
Updated: 2020-03-10
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:54:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23095900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Huluppu/pseuds/Huluppu
Summary: Aicosu requested "Modern Wedding AU"He doesn't believe in God, but he believes in her.
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Rose Tico
Comments: 8
Kudos: 26
Collections: GingerRose Mini exchange 2020





	A Little Faith in You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Aicosu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aicosu/gifts).



There was a shuffling of feet that came to an abrupt stop behind him and then a groan.

"He's at it again."

"Yeah," came Solo's deep, unperturbed reply as he sat folded into a small chair in the corner. He knew the dark haired man hadn’t even bothered to look up from his tablet.

"It doesn't worry you?" asked Finn.

"Not particularly. Why? What would you have him do? He's got to do something while they're grabbing his suit --"

"Áo gấm," Armitage interjected.

"Yeah, that." He felt a ripple of annoyance in the air before Solo continued. "Look, man, he's got to do something to kill time while they do that and grab coffee."

"Poe's not going to grab coffee --"

Armitage scoffed, turning away from the elaborate arrangement he had been working on, rounding on Finn. "Not going to stop for coffee?  _ Not going to stop for coffee?!  _ It’s his  _ obsession _ . He'd walk around with a damn IV of it if he could. Him seeing a Starbuck's sign is like flashing a dimebag at an addict. And there's three of them,” he bit out, gesticulating, “Between here and the tailor's. There's no way he's not going to stop for a taste. So if you don't mind, I'm going to go back to my arrangement, unless of course, you have other ideas --" He glanced at the clock, fighting an anxious scrabble of breath as he saw the time. "And considering how your husband is already five minutes late, perhaps the time would be better spent devising ways to kill him when he steps through the door if he's not back in less than another five?"

Finn looked at him, mouth slightly agape, debating on whether or not he was actually serious, before shaking his head and saying, "You know what? Working on the arrangement is good. Working on the arrangement is excellent." The man slipped his cell phone out of his pocket as he walked away.

Armitage turned back to the tray, seeing Solo's smirk out of the corner of his eye and felt the corners of his own mouth twitch upwards in grim satisfaction. Then he eyed the half formed arrangement and his stomach fell.

_ Useless _ , a voice growled in the back of his head and the pit in his stomach grew sharpened edges, jabbing at him until he grimaced. He clasped a few areca nuts in his hand. The betel leaves were behaving, mostly, forming the scales of the dragon's body as it curved downward before the head swooped upward, carrying what was supposed to be a delicate rose in its maw, but was currently a mess of areca nuts. Maybe, just maybe, if he could get the organization just right, it would calm his nerves.

He had a more stylized rendering of the symbol as his business logo for Arkanian Designs. Something that he drew from the best of his recollections of the faded art nouveau symbol shaped like a curling teardrop that emblazoned the wall of the abandoned theater next to the dilapidated apartment building when he lived in Arkanis, with his mother. Before she died. Before Brendol came and took him away. He had seen the design again, just as fragmented, the flower a bit different, almost looking ethereal, but the design was the same, in some pictures of Quan, Rose’s father, standing before ancient ruins in Vietnam.

"What's this?" Armitage asked him, pointing to the image in the picture.

It took a moment for Quan to unfold himself from his contemplation over the chessboard before him, sliding his hand away from his chin and looking up at the younger man distractedly. "What?" he asked.

Armitage held out the picture to him, pointing to the symbol. "I've seen this before. What is it?"

Quan slid his glasses up onto his forehead and held the photo away from him, squinting, before reversing course and pulling the photo closer, placing the glasses back onto the bridge of his nose. Quan's brows rose in surprise as he looked from the photo, up to Armitage, and back again.

"You've seen this before? Where? I haven't really seen it much outside of Eastern Asia." He shrugged. "Definitely not here in the States."

Armitage looked away, avoiding Quan's gaze. "Arkanis," he said, not quite comfortable with where the subject matter might be heading.

To his relief, Quan merely nodded, saying, "Ah", and not pursuing the location in question any further. The older man stood up and walked over to the wall of bookshelves that served as his library. "If I remember correctly, there were two art periods in the early part of the 1900s that were heavily influenced by Oriental works," he said as his hand ran over book spines. "Here we are," he said, pulling out a dusty, half buried tome labeled  _ Mouvements Artistiques du Début du XXe Siècle et Influence Orientale.  _ He chuckled, saying, “You know, I found this in a tag sale when we lived in Hays Minor, of all places." 

He flipped through the pages as he walked back to the younger man. “When I was a kid, my bà nôi would tell a bedtime story from time to time. A folk tale about the story between the mountain fairy queen and the dragon emperor. Now, the story itself is well known, but the version she told me, a romance of a conqueror and healer that could fix anything was... rather archaic. She took me to those ruins you saw. They were built in a prosperous time of the early Zhou dynasty by an enclave of Han Chinese. They carved highly stylized designs into their temples and buildings that depicted their legends. A couple of them honored the lovers, but the symbols were abandoned soon afterward for something simpler. I didn’t think much of any of it until I happened upon this book at the sale. I suspect your particular artist saw a symbol that refers to that archaic version.”

He placed the book in front of Armitage, pointing to a picture. There stood a beautiful young woman bathed in a heavenly glow and a warm smile on her lips that he recognized, so similar to the one Rose saved only for him. One hand was outstretched, stroking the flame bright scales of her companion, a long, sinewy dragon that wrapped lovingly around her, body curving downward as its head arched up to delicately grasp the pale rose carved pearl she held in her other hand between its jaws. Beneath the picture was the design Armitage had stared at out the window, lost in contemplation when he was a little boy.

On the opposite page was a companion drawing where a man stood with an icy demeanor and dressed in full imperial regalia, a midnight black longpao with a blood red dragon emblazoned on its front. His companion was the woman, arching like a falling star down from the heavens, hanfu sleeves billowing like feathery wings. Her fingers came to lace with his in a caress that spoke volumes, which grasped the pommel of his sword, a perfect spherical pearl, dark jade in color. The design beneath looked like an abstract phoenix reaching down to clutch an inky gem in her beak.

Quan flipped the page. "As I said, the designs fell out of favor but you might know them better in this," he said, hand running over a symbol.

Taijitu. Yin Yang.

Armitage scowled. "A religious symbol?"

Quan shrugged slightly. "It can be, if that's how you choose to see it. I suspect that's not how the artist saw it. That they saw the love story instead. How two opposing forces overcame their obstacles, blended their similarities and became one." Quan sensed the younger man’s dismay and gave him a reassuring smile. "I know how you feel about religion, my friend, but leave a tiny bit of room for mysticism, if you can.” He shrugged, gesturing upwards. “Out of all the messages that the Universe could send you, is this truly the worst one?"

Armitage sighed, bowing his head slightly. As much as Quan might be right, he couldn't help but think the Universe sometimes slipped these religious signs into his life to irritate him and amuse itself.

"You may have a point," he finally conceded.

Quan hummed as they returned to sit before the chess game. "I think you should use it, though. It will bring you good luck,” Quan said, eyes focused on his general as he moved it forward a space.

"Rose and I make our own luck," he replied. He moved his chariot orthogonally before smiling. "Check."

Quan merely tutted in surprise.

  
  
  


He debated on whether to show Rose the design that had always been at the back of his mind. In good times, when he had cherished it and bad, when he had raged against it. The image remained there, always flitting about, in the back of his head. He didn’t believe in divine powers. If there had been one, his mother, the beautiful being that she was, would have never been struck with illness in the flower of her youth nor died the slow, agonizing death that she had. And, as far as he was concerned, no amount of divine knowledge would have ever had him willingly choose Brendol as father. 

But Rose was different. While he found faith in the unknown and unseen suspect, he was aware that she believed. And that there were certain Taoist principles that she found a deep and abiding strength in. The Taijitu sat at the core. 

So after some deliberation, he thought it best to show what he had rendered, shrugging and telling her that maybe the design would be a bit of a lucky charm. He ignored the side eye he got for that, having faith in her to let the discussion go wherever it might choose. 

But his brows drew together in consternation as a frown formed on her lips when she looked at it, tilting her head slightly. “Why does it look like it’s going to eat the rose with all those teeth? What are you trying to tell me, Armitage?”

“Eat? What?” He glanced at the sketch. “No, he's holding it, love, like it's the most precious thing in the world.”

Her brows rose. “Really? Is that what it's doing?” 

He nodded,looking at the design, then back to her. She studied it as he studied her. He trusted her. Implicitly. If something was wrong with it --

He gazed at it again, losing himself to his thoughts. Maybe… He tilted his head. Maybe, it did. Look menacing. Doubt started to weave its way through his chest. Perhaps the design wasn’t a good one after all. Perhaps --

He gave away a small start when she gasped. A look of surprise forming over her features as glanced at her, her jaw slackening. “Wait.” She turned to him, suddenly misty eyed. “Is this what I think it is?”

He played coy, scrutinizing the design with an air of innocence, putting a hand to his chin and pretending to be deep in thought. “Hmm? What might it be, love?”

The room filled with the light of her radiant smile and he could feel his own lips tugging at the corners. The warmth in his chest was blooming and he savored the feeling, knowing he had done right by her. The feeling, however, was growing at an exponential rate and wouldn’t be contained for long. The charade would soon be up, but he didn’t mind. Not one bit.

Oh, my brilliant flower, he thought. I knew you would figure it out. My beautiful, clever girl.

She closed the gap between them, wrapping her arms around him and lacing the fingers of a hand into one of his. “It might be a completely beautiful design. And yes, I see how he's holding it now. It’s clever. And orderly. Regal." She squeezed his hand. "A bit like someone I know.” She reached up and gave him a long and loving kiss. When she pulled back, there was a teasing look in her eye. “And later on,” she began. “When we've done all the hard work to succeed…” Her hand reached up and ran affectionately over his cheekbone and he turned, pressing a kiss into her palm. “We can simply say it was all because we had this "lucky" symbol.”

He laughed. She knows me too well, he thought, bending back down and kissing her again. And when she sighed a few moments later, running her hand down and up the length of his back before coming to nestle in his hair, the image of the fairy woman with her dragon lover flitted about in the back of his mind and he was not alarmed when a feeling of trust flickered there with it. 

  
  
  


Now he stood before the wedding gift tray, desperately trying to arrange the motif, to show her how they would make their own "luck" together, and calm his nerves. The problem was it wasn't. Calming his nerves. Because he couldn't seem to get the damn arrangement right. Sure, he could go with another design. There were dozens of them flitting through his head right now. Always a contingency plan. Always. But he wanted this one. He just wanted everything to be perfect.

For Rose.

Well, if he was going to be completely honest with himself, what he really wanted to do was place the world at her feet. But since he did not have that to offer. Yet. He could make the offerings he had now perfect.

The pit of dread had risen out of his stomach and spread its gloom into his chest as the some leaves and nuts refused to cooperate. He glanced over at the clock. Dameron and Phasma should have been back by now with his áo gấm.

“What the hell is keeping them?” He murmured as he tucked the leaves again to allow the nuts to lay just so. Why the hell hadn't he and Rose eloped? It would have been so much easier if they eloped.

But then he would have to face the disappointment in Rose’s mother, Bihn's eyes (which he might be able to handle) and Quan's (which would crush him). So, he had said yes to this...show. Though going through the steps time and again with Rose and her family, seeing the definite order in the ritual, had given him a sense of peace until last night when she had left their home for her parents' house. He hadn't slept well knowing that she wasn't beside him. Knowing that there would be a good two hundred people, most being Rose's relatives, friends, and friends of friends with only his "groom's party" representing his side merely piled on the anxious thoughts. He felt outnumbered and exposed, despite his companions reassurances.

One of the areca nuts rebelliously refused to sit still in its assigned spot, choosing instead to roll to the edge at every opportunity. He set it back in its spot with a soft clink.. It rolled away.

Clink.

Roll...

_ Clink. _

Roll…

**_Clink!_ **

Roll...

_ Fuck!  _

Frustration boiled up in him, the tip of an areca nut biting into his palm as he clenched it. 

He took a deep breath. 

If he could just be patient, he could get this. He just needed to be patient, not angry, not weak. Just...

He took another breath.

Patient.

He forced all other thoughts out of his mind and focused solely on the task at hand.

There. Finally, he thought, standing back to admire his work after what he thought was only a few minutes later, the little rebel finally subdued. His nerves abated slightly. Then he glanced over at the clock and his anxiety took flight again.

“Bloody hell, is that time?” He turned to Finn, who had chosen that unfortunate moment to reenter the front room, with a near murderous look and pointed at the clock. “Is _that_ the bloody time? Where are they with my áo gấm? Where the hell is your husband, Hart? I swear if Dameron went for a coffee run --”

The man lifted his hands up, trying to placate him. “Look, I’m sure everything’s fine. They may have just hit some traffic on the way back. Especially since I texted Phasma and said that you were getting a bit antsy, so they better not be stopping for coffee…”

Poe Dameron chose that precise moment to stroll into the house, coffee cup in hand. Armitage simply looked back at Finn while barely biting back a smirk, but the man was too busy shooting an irritated look at his husband to notice.

“I specifically texted you ‘no coffee’,” he told his spouse, hands turning upwards in annoyance.

Dameron gave Finn an apologetic look. "I know, babe, but we didn't get the text until we were halfway through the drive thru and we couldn't get out at that point."

Phasma brushed past them on the way to the bedroom, wardrobe bag hanging off her fingers. "Told you it was a bad idea," she said, rolling her eyes.

Dameron shrugged, "Hey, how was I supposed to know the car in front of us was buying enough coffee to caffeinate a small country?"

"The fact that it took them five minutes to order and the driver sounded like he didn't come up for air once?" she called over her shoulder.

He sniffed, then shrugged. “Alright, you got a point. But we’ve still got time. Everything’s fine.”

Armitage bristled. Most days, he managed to tolerate Dameron. The man was a brilliant salesman, but an impulsive engineer. Even Rose conceded that he was really a closeted architect and only got a job in structural engineering because the paychecks were steadier. Dameron was an asset to the burgeoning firm and well, a good acquaintance. It was far too taxing on Armitage’s faculties to classify him as a friend however. Particularly because of Dameron’s innate ability to say just the wrong thing as assbackwards reassurance to Armitage at precisely the wrong time.

Today proved no exception.

"Come on, Hugs," Dameron said with a laugh, using the nickname Armitage loathed. "It's not like someone is going to literally pull the trigger today…” And all might have been well if he had left it at that, but that would not be Poe Dameron.

“But give it five years, it might feel like it." 

Images of Rose filtered through his mind. Her eyes shining as she laughed that sunshine bright laugh of hers. Her, looking stunning, with her brows knit together, working on a particularly thorny engineering problem. Her ecstatic face, moaning out his name, body arching into him as he moved within her. Her eyes blazing with anger, fighting for him. For him. When no one else would. Why would he ever regret that? He could be patient, even with the likes of Dameron. But that was a step too far.

Well, that was one way to get rid of the anxiety, he thought. He stared at Dameron’s laughing stupid face, then squared his shoulders back as he let out a sigh.

I'm going to fucking kill him. Going to kill him and sleep with a  _ smile _ on my face for the whole goddamn night. Rose will understand. Armitage’s jaw clenched and his fingers curled into a fist.

Solo suddenly appeared in front of him, giving Armitage an almost imperceptible shake of his head. Not worth it, he seemed to say.

"Come on, Poe, we're going for a walk." Finn said, grabbing his husband by the elbow.

"What? Why? I was just joking. Relieve the tension, you know?" Poe said, obviously a bit miffed.

Finn leveled a look at his husband. "It wasn't as funny as you thought. We're going to go for a walk because it's too much like you to spout off when you're nervous. And weddings make you nervous, that's why we eloped, remember? Come on, baby, couple rounds around the block so everyone can cool off." He dragged a suddenly sheepish looking Poe out the front door in a hasty retreat.

Solo let out the breath he had been holding as the screen door slammed shut. “Glad I didn’t have to call Rose and explain to her why we had to cancel the procession and ceremony because you killed a member of your party."

“Yet," Armitage replied, still irritated. "There’s still another fifteen hours that I have to spend in close proximity to him before I don’t have to see that idiotic face for ten glorious days.”

“Well, perhaps it will look a bit less idiotic when you get back,” Solo said.

Diplomatic, Armitage thought idly. Must be back on speaking terms with his mother. The tension in his shoulders eased a bit and his anxiety started to fizzle now that his áo gấm was here.

“But until then,” Solo continued, “Phasma, Finn, and I will run interference between you and Poe.”

Phasma had emerged from the bedroom, brushing imaginary dust from her hands as she immediately assessed the room. "Dameron's being as helpful as ever I see?"

"Yup," Ben replied. "Go get dressed, Hux." He gave Armitage a small bow, formal, polite, the exact opposite temperament than Poe moments before. "This is yours and Rose's day. We are here to aid you, dear sir. You'll know where to find us when you're ready. Maz should be here in twenty minutes with Dad. I'll send her in to have her check your suit, if you like."

The remaining anxiety that he had dissipated and the order of the day now laid itself out clearly in his head. “Thank you, S-- Ben. I would...appreciate that.”

The gesture had surprised him. It had been exactly the right thing to do. He had been wrong about Solo, he wasn't the complete tool Armitage originally thought he was. There had been some rough times in the beginning, when they had been at First Order Solutions, where, as Ben had put it, "they had both been getting their shit together", that they hadn't gotten along at all. Then he met Rose. And Ben had met Rey through Armitage when the latter had been exploring Tico ancestry. The young woman had taken a shine to the family that had informally adopted her second cousin, Davi, as an erstwhile brother and uncle. Armitage tried, and failed, from rolling his eyes when Rey said meeting Ben had been destiny. But her open embracing of Ben, of who he was, had been a transformative influence. Both men had been changing slowly, but acceptance was a powerful catalyst.

Catalyst, he thought, as he slid the suit out of the garment bag, black silk sliding between his fingers before catching on the yellow cotton that had been woven between red silk ribbons. Rose would laugh at that, saying she had changed as much as he had. A smile ghosted his lips as his fingers ran down the curling yellow and red body of the dragon. He would never say it to anyone else, didn't need to say it to her because, well, she knew. She had become woven into the very fabric of his being. Slowly over time. Stitch by stitch.

**Author's Note:**

> Alright, so I really contemplated on this prompt and the concept of love, thinking how would Rose and Hux, the two, become one. Probably intellectually and physically first, then emotionally, but the last hurdle would be spiritually (especially when you're throwing a guy with a massive disdain for all things religious -- Force mumbo jumbo -- into the mix). 
> 
> This was to be a part of a bigger story (that might still happen) that would be snapshots of the wedding day and the Gingerrose relationship in this AU where the two are structural engineers, but I felt that was biting off a lot more than what I could actually post (and feel good about) by the deadline. I wanted to explore all aspects of love, romantic, platonic, and familial love. I might still aim for that larger story. And I guess I'm also a fan of AUs (and red ribbons of fate) in that, no matter what universe a fictional couple finds themselves in, there's nothing that can stop them from loving one another. (Shrugs) There are worse weaknesses.
> 
> Okay, research and information -- I did do research into Taijitu and some of the information given is credible, but there's definitely some artistic freedom going on too. I purposely referenced the phoenix version since my understanding is that is what the Starbird is based off of. (And the dragon's teeth could be seen as a very subtle First Order reference.) An áo gấm is the groom's suit. And areca nuts and betel leaves are a Vietnamese wedding tradition and a vital part of the wedding ceremony with their own love story behind it. The arrangements of these can be quite elaborate. Last, there is a belief in Buddhism that an individual chooses their parents before leaving the bardo to return to (for lack of better words) 'this life'. 
> 
> The title is part of a song lyric from "Miracles" by Jefferson Starship, which for the spiritual aspect I think works pretty well for GingerRose.
> 
> Thank you Ngoc12thefangirl for answering my questions about Vietnamese culture and Raven n tha Moonlight for betaing! You were so very helpful! :) And thank you to everyone on the GingerRose Discord for being the wonderful people that you are!


End file.
